Saving his lover
Man beaten for $1 in Bx. is on ventilator
He defended a lover during a brutal assault — and on Christmas he was clinging onto his life.
Juan Fresnada, 61, was hooked up to a ventilator in the intensive care unit at Lincoln Hospital Wednesday, a day after a heartless gang of thieves beat him mercilessly.
Fresnada was leaving a McDonald’s on Third Ave. in the Bronx with his partner Byron Caceres, 29, just before 1:30 a.m. Tuesday when a man came up to them and demanded their money, Caceres told the Daily News.
The couple went into a nearby deli to get away from the perp — but he followed them into the store and continued to try to rob them.
Things quickly turned violent.
“My husband tried to defend me,” said Caceres, who goes by the nickname of Chi Chi. “The guy had his fist ready like he was ready to attack me. My husband said, ‘Don’t you get close to him.’ ”
Caceres said two other men joined in as the group started to pummel the defenseless pair, and Fresnada yelled for Caceres to run away.
The group assaulted Caceres and left him with injuries to his head and legs — but Caceres said his lover sacrificed himself so he could get to safety.
The group relentlessly pummeled Fresnada, and smashed a steel garbage can over his head. The thieves ended up with just $1 from the victims.
“They were beating him for 10 or 15 minutes,” said Caceres, who does not own a cell phone and could not call the cops. “I went back and found him on the floor. He was breathing heavily and bleeding from his head. I tried to give him CPR but then a guy said I should stop because of how heavily he was breathing.”
Caceres said he did not think the attack was a hate crime, and said the assailants did not shout any homophobic slurs. Police on Wednesday were still seeking the violent criminals.
When the ambulance arrived Fresnada was conscious, but Caceres said the brutallybeaten man could not remember his name. Caceres declined medical treatment, and said police would not let him join his partner in the ambulance.
The couple is not legally married, but have lived together in a single-room occupancy building in the Bronx’s Morrisania neighborhood since 2016.
Two of the couple’s neighbors who visited Fresnada in the hospital said the doctor told them the victim had a “slim chance of survival,” and would likely end up in a vegetative state if he does pull through.
Fresnada had swelling in his brain and blood pooled in the back of his skull Wednesday, the neighbors said.
Fresnada, who goes by the nickname of Cuba because he is Cuban, immigrated to New York with the Marielitos in 1980.
Caceres came to New York from Honduras in 2007, and the couple met through a program for low-income gay men in 2015. They’ve been inseparable since.